1. “Iroquois Village” @ State Fair

2. Highland Forest on Military Tract

3. My book—1999 (2001)
UG Honors project
(magna cum laude)
MA thesis @ U of London
PhD dissertation @ U of
Chicago
Book—tenure!!
Now out of print

4. The Discovery and Creation of
America
The Mesoamerican City as Symbol

5. Seven Sites of Primary Urban
Generation
• Where did people create Cities?
• China, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus
Valley, Nigeria, Peru and Mexico
– Not Europe
– Now in the 3rd World
• How is the Urban Mesoamerican
Culture Native, Indigenous, to America?
– Sites of a Hierophany

6. Teotihuacan
“Place of the Gods”

7. Tenochtitlan
“Place of Nopal Cactus”

8. Cities as Ceremonial Centers
• Ritual theaters which oriented human
life, thought, and action--organized
economic and social activity
• Cosmovision--time and space
structured the city into a coherent,
systematic worldview

9. Cosmomagical Thinking
• Mesoamerican city as an expression of the
macrocosmos (i.e., universe)
– Parallels between the microcosmos (human
body, landscape, etc.) and the macrocosmos
– “Total fact” of urban existence

10. What is the Meaning of Discovery?
• Discovery and Creation of America
– Between 1492 and 1521 ?
• Bernal Diaz de Castillo’s description of
Tenochtitlan (p. xv)
– Discovery and destruction of Paradise
• Yucatan (Uic athan) we do not understand

11. America as Paradise
• Geographical location
of Eden
• Utopian mythology
• How do Indigenous
People fit?
– Noble Savage or Wild
Humans?
– Christians or not?
• St. Thomas

12. Parliament of the World’s Religions

13. Major topics
The 2009 Parliament in Melbourne will address a number
of crucial topics from religious and spiritual perspectives.
• Healing the Earth with Care and Concern
• Reconciling with the Indigenous Peoples
• Overcoming Poverty in a Patriarchal World
• Creating Social Cohesion in Village and City
• Sharing Wisdom in the Search for Inner Peace
• Securing Food and Water for All People
• Building Peace in the Pursuit of Justice

14. An Indigenous Peoples’ Statement to the World
on the Traditional Lands
of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation
Unfortunately, certain doctrines have been threatening to the survival of our cultures, our
languages, and our peoples, and devastating to our ways of life. These are found in
particular colonizing documents such as the Inter Caetera papal bull of 1493, which called
for the subjugation of non-Christian nations and peoples and “the propagation of the
Christian empire.” This is the root of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery that is still
interwoven into laws and policies today that must be changed. The principles of subjugation
contained in this and other such documents, and in the religious texts and documents of
other religions, have been and continue to be destructive to our ways of life (religions),
cultures, and the survival of our Indigenous nations and peoples. This oppressive tradition is
what led to the boarding schools, the residential schools, and the Stolen Generation,
resulting in the trauma of Indigenous peoples being cut off from their languages and
cultures, resulting in language death and loss of family integrity from the actions of churches
and governments. We call on those churches and governments to put as much time, effort,
energy and money into assisting with the revitalization of our languages and cultures as they
put into attempting to destroy them;

15. Doctrine of Christian Discovery
-At least since1452 a
succession of Catholic Popes
gave Christians sanction to
seize lands and goods and
enslave non-Christian
peoples.
-Africa, throughout the
Americas, Australia
-Origin of the Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade
-“Age of Discovery”
-’Christendom’-Christian
Empire building
-Impediment to adopting
Indigenous Values for our
survival

16. Papal bull: (1452) Dum diversas
• Pope Nicholas V. authorizes King Alfonso V of
Portugal to:
• “invade, capture, vanquish, and subdue, all
Saracens and pagans…to reduce their persons
to perpetual slavery and to take away all their
possessions and property.”
• Christians encountering non-Christians could
take everything!

17. Papal bull: (May 4, 1493) Inter Caetera
• 6 months after Columbus’ ‘Discovery’
• Pope Alexander VI calls for “barbarous
nations” to be “subjugated” and brought to
the Catholic faith and Christian religion “for
the propagation of the Christian empire”
(“imperii christiani”).
• If a Christian enters the lands of non-
Christians their lands become the possession
of the ‘discoverers.’

18. Johnson v. M’Intosh
(U.S. Supreme Court 1823)
• Chief Justice Marshall writes the opinion
• Outline of the Doctrine of Discovery as fundamental
to US Property Law
• Non-Indian U.S. federal Indian law borrows the
dehumanizing doctrine of “discovery” by “Christian
people” of lands “inhabited by natives, who were
heathens.”
• Catholic principle of ‘discovery’ morphs into
Protestant Nation building project

19. Oneida Nation v Sherrill, NY
(U.S. Supreme Court decision 2005)
• Justice Ginsberg writes the majority opinion
against the Oneida Nation land action.
• First citation is the “Doctrine of Discovery”
• Fundamental for presumption of “clear title”

20. UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous
Issues
• DoCD an Urgent matter to be addressed by the International
community
– Unifying issue—slavery, colonialism, environmental
destruction
– Paper submitted by Tonya Gonnella Frichner for 9th session
– Human rights matter
• Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
– September 12, 2007
– CANZUS
– From Indigenous ‘people’ to Indigenous “Peoples”

21. Haudenosaunee Statement
Oren Lyons (May 3, 2008)
• ...[I]t turns out that the Principles of the Doctrine of Discovery
remain foundational and determinative in US federal Law and
the law of many other settler states around the world. The
Law of Christendom which prevailed during the discovery
periods of the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries continues on into
today. The Divine Rights of Kings and Popes were the engines
of Empire. The Papal Bulls of 1493-94 coupled with the First
Letters of Patent issued by King Henry VII to John Cabot and
Sons, March 5, 1496 established the process of colonization of
the Western Hemisphere.

22. Cabot Charter (1496)
• Henry VII granted North America to John Cabot authorizing
him to:
“seek out, discover, and find, whatsoever isles, countries, and
regions of the heathens and infidels that before this time
have been unknown to all Christian people.”

23. U.S. Episcopal Church
July 2009
• Voted unanimously to adopt the resolution
“Repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery”
• Advocating for US to adopt the UN Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Cabot Charter pre-dates Episcopal Church (1530’s)
– Episcopalians felt that that DoCD and colonialism
was corrosive to their religion!
• Similar moves among Unitarians, Friends, grassroots
Catholic organizations

24. Urgent contemporary matter to
rescind the Church documents
related to the Doctrine of
Discovery
How does it change the story of our
founding for Indigenous and
Immigrant peoples?

25. Doctrine of Discovery Study Group
• Collaborative group of Onondaga and
Syracuse citizens
– Join the list!
• Sign up sheet outside or email me:
– pparnold@syr.edu
– http://www.doctrineofdiscovery.org/index.htm

26. Valladolid Debate
• 1550 between Juan Gines de Sepuveda and
Bartolome de las Casas
– Do Indians of America possess souls?
– What does human sacrifice indicate about their
humanity?

27. Sides of the Debate
• Sepuveda • Las Casas
– Classical Greek scholar – Priest of the New World
– Natural slaves • Sailed with Columbus
• Friend of the Indian
– Lower rung on the Great
Chain of Being – Primitive Christians
– Had souls and could be
civilized

28. Sources:
Primary sources
Texts generated by
Mesoamericans
before contact
with Europeans
Fevervary Mayer
Picture books
Ritual objects

29. Priestly Writings
• Texts by Spanish
priests
– Written in Nahuatl
and Spanish
• Florentine Codex by
Fray Bernardino de
Sahagún
– Christianization

30. Archaeology
• Cities everywhere in
Mexico
– Ballcourt in Xochicalco

31. Ethnography
• Nahuatl as lingua
franca of the New
World
– 32 languages in
Mexico
– 2,000,000 Nahua
speakers today

32. Structures of Mesoamerican
Ceremonial Centers
• Worldmaking
– city modeled on universe
• axis mundi (Eliade)--Center of Cosmos
• Worldcentering
– 1)body as focus (bloodletting)
– 2)organized by specialists--priests
• Worldrenewing
– yearly cycle of rituals rejuvenated the cosmos